Beautiful Story
by VeltPunch
Summary: drabble series. Hikaru wasn't exactly surprised when he woke up with Sai next to him. He was more concerned when he found out his ex-ghost was now his new socially and technologically inept female domesting living partner. Eventual SaixOgata
1. Sai, you're a girl

"Sai, you're a girl." Hikaru reminded, exasperated. "This is what girls wear."

His ex-ghost, now turned domestic living partner, pouted unencoouragingly. "It's very restricting." Complained the once male ghost. "And very uncomfortable." Sai added, after a moment.

"Well I didn't make it." Hikaru grumbled stubbornly, sitting himself across the Goban with his legs crossed. "And that's one of the better things."

Considering that Sai could be in those pumps Akari favored these days, and a tight strapless dress, Hikaru thought his current get up pretty manageable. Seeing as though he'd only found the now human ghost this morning, he'd had to make do with whatever he could find—which was a pair of his old soccer shorts and a sweatshirt. He'd assumed they were pretty comfortable.

Apparently not.

"I miss my kimono…" Sai bemoaned, looking like he was still having trouble with the whole having boobs thing. "I don't like being a girl."

"You're complaining about being alive now?" Hikaru asked, a little irritated. After all, the fact he'd come back was miraculous as it was, and Hikaru wasn't about to look a gift horse in the face.

"Of course not!" Sai protested hotly. "I just…" He—…she-looked down, morbidly. "I just didn't think I would come back like this…"

Actually, Hikaru thought Sai looked more natural as a girl, anyway. He'd always been a little bit more effeminate than the usual pretty boy, and Hikaru hadn't even realized that the body Sai currently inhabited _was _a girls until he realized that his best friend was completely naked.

More than a little embarrassed—and annoyed—Hikaru tapped the edge of the Go board with his fan impatiently. "What does it matter, anyway? Why don't we just start playing?"

After all, it had been a long time since he'd seen his best friend, and much had changed.

For one, Hikaru was a much more skilled player than the brash irrationality he had once been known for. That, and he wasn't a measly little shodan. A good thing too, for if he wasn't making as much money as he was he surely wouldn't have been able to afford this apartment. And how would he have been able to explain Sai to his parents?

He shuddered at the very thought.

Sai flounced over, looking giddy at the very thought of Go after all these years.

He didn't begin Nigiri at first—instead, the ex-ghost carefully fingered the many glimmering stones in the go ke, holding them between his fingers like precious diamonds, simply content to feel them once more.

"It's been so long since I've held a stone with two hands…" Murmured the woman, looking over at Hikaru with piercing blue eyes.

There was a heavy puissance in those burning bright eyes, and Hikaru swallowed. "Nigiri?"

Sai nodded.

Hikaru grinned when, five hands in, Sai played his infamous Shuusaku diagonal. A brief, but tenebrous wave of nostalgia hit him square in the face, making the back of his eyes sear with an unknown pain, water welling up until he had to rub at them with his hand.

"Hikaru…?" Sai called softly, looking concerned. "Are you alright?"

'It's nothing." Hikaru answered stiffly, bringing his hands down with a watery smile. "I'm just… glad you're back."

"I am too." Sai returned his smile with a brilliant one of his own. "You've grown so much, Hikaru."

"Probably not enough to beat you." Hikaru sniffed, playing a hane in the upper left corner.

Sai countered the formation he was growing easily, looking pleased with him. "Maybe not," Conceded his master. "But soon enough you'll reach me."

And with that, he gave Hikaru another smile.

Hikaru flushed, before slapping a hand to his face.

Sai blinked, tilting his head. "Eh? What's wrong?"

"Don't—…" Hikaru groaned. "Don't do that…"

Sai looked confused—only furthering the cute pout to his lips and the wideness of his blue eyes. "What?"

HIkaru only shook his head, deciding to change tactic and defend his territory in the center. "Nevermind."

But one thing was for sure.

God definitely shouldn't have made Sai into a girl.

He'd be batting men away left and right.

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	2. I don't need clothes

Of course, for him to have to do that, he'd have to actually let Sai outside.

"It's such a nice day out!" Sai pouted, peering childishly out the window. "And there's a park just across the street!"

Hikaru rubbed his temples. He'd just gotten back from his regular matches, and was trying to study for the game he had in the semi-finals of the Honninbo tournament. Though Akira had been in a handful of Title tournaments himself, neither of the two had managed to win one quite yet, though Touya had come quite close in the Gosei league. Yet still, for a seventeen year old to make it into the semi-finals of any Title league was quite an achievement, but the Honninbo title meant a bit more to him than to the regular Go player.

After all, it was _Sai's _title, long ago.

But he wasn't getting anything done with said ghost turned girl next to him, making sad faces at the park across the street.

Honestly, and here he'd thought the childish woman would be content to lounge around and play Go today.

"You never showed any interest in parks before." Hikaru pointed out with an eye roll.

"Because I couldn't really walk through them!" Sai insisted, turning big blue eyes to Hikaru. "Please? _Please_? Just for a little bit!"

Hikaru sighed, knowing it would be impossible to keep Sai cooped up in here forever. After all, he was real now, and would want to have a life and do all sorts of things.

Like play Go with other people.

Another thing Hikaru wasn't sure how to handle.

"Let's go then." The blonde rubbed his hair, getting up from his Goban with a stretch. "Maybe we could get some dinner too."

"Ramen?" Asked the girl excitedly.

HIkaru snorted. "Of course!"

He'd gotten a laptop as a moving out present, so perhaps he could placate the ex-ghost with some more Netgo, at least until he figured out what he was going to say. Would Sai want to join the professional world? And what was he supposed to say if he did? What would he tell people? He'd spent almost his entire career denying he was Sai, denying he knew anything about Sai, only to show up one day with the man—woman—in tow, asking to sign him up for the Pro test.

That wouldn't end well.

Fortunately, Sai seemed more concerned with touching every flower, moving every stone and generally acting like a five year old child. Hikaru supposed they'd have to go shopping for more appropriate girl clothes—Sai looked like a young adult dressed up as an adolescent boy.

"Don't get lost!" Hikaru called, feeling like a parent scolding a child. Except Sai was much too old to be a child.

"I wont!" Was his reply, soft with the distance and the sound of rushing water from the creek.

How old was Sai, anyway? He looked to be somewhere around his early twenties, making him quite a ways older than Hikaru. But he certainly didn't look his actual age, which was possibly getting up somewhere into the two-thousands.

Eventually, Sai grew bored of his adventuring, plopping stones into the creek and watching all the little fish burst away in giant clusters. Hikaru looked around, eying the stores across the street for anything that may have female clothing.

"Let's get some shopping done today too." Said Hikaru, reading a few of the store names.

"Shopping?" Sai looked up. "For what?"

"For your clothes." Hikaru began, looking resigned to the thought. "You can't keep wearing my old clothes forever."

"I can get a new kimono?" Sai leapt up at that, misjudging the length of his legs and near falling into the river. Hikaru hastily pulled him back.

"No." Hikaru shook his head. "People don't wear kimonos anymore. We're going to have to get you girl clothes."

Sai made a pinched face.

Hikaru sighed. "And I'm going to have to remember to refer to you as a girl from now on."

"But I'm actually a guy!" Sai protested, but followed Hikaru in step regardless.

"Not anymore." Hikaru noted, not looking too pleased with the fact either. How was he going to explain everything about being a girl to Sai when he wasn't even a girl himself?

He mulled over this as he pulled the ex-Ghost into one of the many clothing stores lining the streets outside the park, his vision almost assaulted with the amount of pink that inhabited the store. Beside him, Sai gagged.

"I'm not wearing any of this." Exclaimed the young woman, looking repulsed at the very thought.

Hikaru rubbed at his temples, and tried the next store.

It was a little more manageable, and he managed to coax Sai into wearing one of the dresses they had bought. It was a lot either to refer to him as a girl—in his head and when speaking—when he looked the part. Sai made a pretty decent girl, in fact, a little more than decent, and every saleswoman was commenting on his doll-like face and gorgeous long hair. And now that he wasn't wearing Hikaru's old clothes, just plain _everything_.

"—the _nicest _legs I've ever seen!" The woman who was helping Sai proclaimed, looking a little envious. "You should definitely try on some of these jeans—they'll look great on you."

Sai eyed the pants reluctantly, as if he wasn't too keen on wearing something so tight.

"We'll take them." Hikaru cut in, before adding, "But we don't have to try them on today."

"Alright." The woman nodded, adding it to the small mountain of clothes that Hikaru was purchasing.

Sai didn't look particularly pleased with any of them, but he—she! Hikaru mentally refuted. _She—_didn't say anything, only trailed after Hikaru as he grabbed all the bags and headed for the next store.

"I don't need clothes." Sai frowned. "All I need is to play Go."

"Maybe as a ghost." Hikaru replied with a chuckle. "But you're not a ghost anymore, Sai. You need food and sleep—and clothes."

Sai made a sour face, but quite obviously had nothing to say to that.

The two didn't get back from all the shopping, or the dinner, until quite late, and Hikaru decided he'd tell Sai about his laptop tomorrow, when he had more energy to deal with the ex-Ghost. Luckily, he—she, dammit—was tired enough that the moment they got home, she collapsed onto her bed, dress and all.

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	3. That Box

"Internet?" Sai's entire complexion immediately brightened. "You have that box here?"

Hikaru nodded with an amused grin. "Yup, it's right here. And it's not a box Sai—computer. Say it with me, 'computer'."

"Computer." Sai nodded, eagerly reaching for the small laptop. "And I can play Netgo in this small box?"

"Computer." Hikaru corrected lightly, moving into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water before he left for his teaching games. "But yes, you can."

"But…." Sai began with a frown. "I don't see the Go board!"

Hikaru made a noise of resignation as he moved over to stand behind Sai, who was sitting at the kitchen table and curiously peering into the blue lighting of the screen. "You're going to have to learn this all on your own." HIkaru reminded, as he moved to the mouse pad. "Alright, so you have to click on this button first, right? This how you get onto the internet. And then you go to my bookmarks, and its right here, okay?"

"Netgo." Sai said aloud, as he read the name of the bookmark.

Hikaru nodded. "And it'll bring you to the homepage."

"A 'log-in?" Sai echoed, reading what it said on the Netgo homepage. "What's that?"

"That's how the system knows its you. It's kind of like how I sign in when I play a game, you know?" Hikaru reached around the girl, typing in the old login code he'd used all those years ago. "Don't worry about remembering how to type that—the computer should remember it for you."

"Okay." Sai nodded, watching with rapt attention as a screen he was familiar with popped up. "Oh! This is one I remember! I get to challenge the people in the box now, right?"

"They're not in the computer." Hikaru explained with a bit of vexation. "They're just like you, looking into this box and seeing your name."

"So no one is actually in the box?" Sai blinked in confusion, before catching Hikaru's face. "I mean computer." She amended quickly. "No one's in the computer?

"No; they just look into it. Like you're doing."

Sai nodded. "And I can play?"

"Yep. I'll be back before noon, but if you get hungry or thirsty there's stuff in the fridge."

Hikaru left her there, staring with anticipation into the great depths of the internet, moving to the foyer to put on his shoes. The boy frowned. "And you remember how to use the toilet, right?"

"_Yes!-!_" Sai replied hotly, with no small amount of embarrassment.

Hikaru laughed. "Just checking."

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Ogata Juudan choked on his own spit, hacking away as he quickly put out his cigarette before it caught on something and burned his house down.

"Sai?" He coughed, squinting into his monitor.

Yes, he'd read correctly.

Sai had logged in, after all these years.

"That may not be right." Ogata amended, clicking onto the game the elusive Netgo player was currently playing against Toko.

No.

This was Sai.

No one else could defeat someone so soundly, yet bring the game to an uncanny brilliance.

But how?

And why, after all these years?

He's emerged from the dead, the Juudan thought, leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful look to his face. Should he challenge him?

And if he did, who would emerge victorious?

In the dim, wan lighting of his fish tank, the professional Go player decided that this may be the only change he'd ever get.

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"Oh?"

Sai blinked as he scrolled down the many players online, after finishing up yet another mediocre game.

"O…gata" He read aloud, wondering why it sounded so familiar.

Ogata, Ogata… Did he know anyone named that?

Well wait, anyone he knew personally was quite dead. So, did _Hikaru _know anyone like that? He'd certainly heard it before, but why? Maybe it was someone Hikaru had played, thought the ghost turned woman. Or maybe it was a professional Hikaru knew. Or maybe it was an amateur?

But the only amateurs Hikaru knew, that Sai would be aware of, anyway, were a few various young kids and his grandfather, and the only time he'd ever been to a tournament was—

Sai blinked.

And then,

"_Ogata_!"

That man!

The one who gave Hikaru so much trouble all the time, always pestering the poor kid and trying to find out more about her.

"Well, I accept your challenge, Ogata-san!" Sai said aloud, though there was no one to hear her in the quiet apartment.

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_Accepted._

Ogata smirked.

_I wont be bested by you, Sai._

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	4. Don't shout!

Hikaru yawned, stretching his hands over his head and wondering how much longer this would take. He wasn't a fan of teaching games—especially when, just a few floors up all his friends were playing actual matches. And here he was, dabbling around with Shidougo. Hell, even Sai was probably having a more enjoyable time than he was.

"Thank you so much, Shindou-sensei." Said Takinawa, the old man he was teaching today. "I've learned so much from you!"

"Oh, it really isn't any problem." Hikaru assured, feeling a little bad that just a few seconds ago he'd been staring angrily at the old man, who had taken his sweet time contemplating his moves. Hikaru was sure a short century passed by every time it was the guy's turn.

Takinawa bowed, giving a wave as he made his way out of the room.

Hikaru slumped into his chair, giving an exhausted little grumble when he realized he had another one at eleven o'clock.

Well, at least he could have lunch now.

The two-toned boy leapt out of his seat at the prospect of food, trotting out of the room in hopes of catching Waya or Isumi.

But surprisingly, he hallway was empty.

Usually around this time the matches were letting out for lunch break, and the hallways were crowded with players taking their lunch in the Institute, and even those leaving to peruse the local restaurants. But there wasn't anyone.

"That's strange…" Hikaru peered down the corner, only to find the same phenomenon on the opposite side.

"Where did everybody go?" The boy asked aloud, tugging at his button down as he made his way to the elevator.

On his way to the ground floor, he pulled out his cellphone and dialed Waya's number.

It rang multiple times, before eventually the other boy picked up.

"_Shindou_!-!"

The blonde winced, pulling the phone away from his ear.

"Don't shout!" The boy yelled back, irritated. "And where are you?"

"Where am I?-!" Waya sputtered, before angrily retorting. "_Where _are you?"

"The Go Institute!" Hikaru replied, growing more annoyed. "I told you I'd be here today! Aren't we going to that new ramen shop today for lunch?"

"Wha—?"

Strange, Waya seemed genuinely surprised.

There was a moment as Hikaru finally reached the ground floor, as the doors slid open with a dim ping that Hikaru realized where everyone had went. Talk about taking a swan dive into the twilight zone.

What could possibly be the entire Go Association, along with Waya himself, was gathered at the bottom floor, completely swarming a computer where the young pro was seated in front of.

Waya looked up, impossibly surprised. "Shindou!"

Hikaru blinked, tucking his phone back into his jean pocket. "Waya." He greeted, walking over with a flat look. "What's wrong with you?"

"Wrong with me?" Waya floundered. "Have you been online at all today?"

"What—no!" And then, with no small amount of horror, "Why?"

Oh god.

Waya's eyes grew wide, but it was Isumi who spoke up. "You haven't seen the game?"

And Kadowaki explained to his confused face, "Sai has returned!"

Well, that was no news to him. But he was more than a little surprised that Sai had already accumulated such a massive crowd. Was the entire Go World watching this game?

And then his stomach dropped to the floor.

"Sai is playing Ogata Juudan!"

"Whaaat?" Hikaru sprinted over, wedging his way through the crowd to get a better look at the computer screen. True to Waya's word, the screen was currently brought up to a match between 'Sai' and 'Ogata'. While it was possible that these handles could simply be just handles, the level of play was too complex for any simple amateur.

No, this was really Sai playing Ogata.

_God Dammit Sai! _Hikaru thought, annoyed. He'd let the girl play because he'd thought it would occupy her time without completely turning the Go World on its head.

Yet he seemed to do it anyway.

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_A good move, _Sai conceded, eying the lower right corner, where the Juudan was ferociously defending his territory.

But Sai was known for his tenacious ability to find any weakness in what seemed like an impenetrable defense; and though Ogata was known for his solid defensive work, Sai had been slowly eating away at his territory in the lower half.

But would he win?

_A bit too early to tell… _Sai mused, playing a hane dashi in response to Ogata's keima tsuke.

The Juudan turned the fight around to the lower left, playing a boshi on top of one of his stones.

Sai's eyes narrowed. _So he'll leave the lower right? _He wondered_, _a smirk to his lips. _Bad move._

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The Juudan's eyes widened when he realized his mistake. He'd thought that the lower right was well protected enough that Sai could hack away at it as he liked, but he wouldn't be able to take the territory. And yet… there was the white stone, eating away at his territory. Ogata immediately moved back to the corner, battling away but to no avail. The damage had already been done.

The Juudan cursed.

_I've already underestimated him, _the man realized. _And it may have cost me the game. _

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"Is he losing?"

"Who's winning?"

"The Juudan, I think…"

"That's impossible! It must be Sai."

Hikaru bit his lip, listening to his fellow professionals debating the game in slight murmurs. Waya said nothing at all, looking like the silent eye of the storm in front of the computer, yet his hand gripping the mouse shook.

"Sai…" The redhead growled. "He's grown so much…"

Hikaru wasn't sure what to say.

"You played Sai once, didn't you?" He asked, after some time.

Waya looked up, questioningly. "Once." He admitted begrudgingly. "I was crushed."

The redhead turned back to the computer. "I was too impulsive—he took advantage of it. He was too good." And then, almost offhandedly, "I thought he was you, once."

Hikaru blinked. "Really?"

"He said to me once, 'I'm really strong, aren't I?" I couldn't believe it. How could someone so good be so… childish? I was convinced he was a child. But no… it's impossible that Sai is that young. His skill—it's almost as if he'd played a thousand years."

_He may have. _Hikaru thought, with a secretive smile.

"You weren't too far off." Hikaru remarked, not surprised when Waya turned around fully.

"Shindou…" The boy began slowly, brown eyes wide and staring up at him. Hikaru didn't return his gaze.

"…What do you mean by that?"

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"Ehhhh?" Sai moaned, dropping his face into his hands.

Ogata had resigned.

"It wasn't even yose…" The now-girl whined, pouting. Ogata had been a very challenging, exciting opponent, yet Sai felt the game hadn't gone long enough. Though as he read ahead, he was aware the game had been his.

Sai blinked as a bubble popped up at the bottom of the screen.

"Who… are you?" Sai read aloud.

"Who am I?" He repeated, this time to himself. As he crossed his arms, he almost blanched at the very female body underneath his arms. Ugh. He'd never get used to this. "Hmm… I'm Sai!" Sai said aloud to the computer.

The computer said nothing back.

"Oh no, this box doesn't hear things does it?" Sai mumbled, tilting his head. "How did Hikaru reply?" He looked down at the black squares lining the bottom of the two-sided box.

But none of it made any sense to him!

"I wish I could answer you." Sai frowned, tracing the game with his finger. "I'm Sai. And I'm real now!"

But there was nothing he could say to the Juudan now.

"One day we'll meet." Sai began again, determinedly. "And I will challenge you to a match in person!"

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End file.
